Rebuilding our Heritage

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Ardnamurchan and Clan MacIain

We are proud to announce the launch of our sister site, casting a long overdue spotlight on the MacIain clan, which dominated the peninsula for over 300 years, shaping many key aspects of what Ardnamurchan is today … before being defeated and brutally dispersed. The site already contains a rich selection of content on Ardnamurchan as it is – and as it was – a ‘must read’ for visitors to the peninsula or those wishing to know more about their Scottish heritage. You can find it here: http://www.clanmaciain.com … please take a look and let us know what you think!

Fundraising Update – How Are We Doing and Where is it Going?

Fair to say, it’s been a challenge, but we are now on our way as a result of numerous generous donations. Contributions currently amount to £251,249, representing a solid initial step towards our target of £2,364,340. The graph below shows our progress and indicates where the money is going.

Can you help us reach our target and preserve this wonderful monument for future generations? We need your help – if you value this fantastic castle as something that is more than the sum of its parts and wish to be a part of its enduring future, you can help by taking a stake in the castle as a sponsor of one of those parts. You can browse the Eastern Curtain wall now, take your time to select your favoured stone, you will be partners for a very long time. Go on … Sponsor a Stone!

Mingary Castle stands by the sea a mile or so to the east of the village of Kilchoan – the interactive map (lower right) shows its exact location. It is a castle with a long and rich history, the seat of the Clan MacIain, a sept of Clan MacDonald and once one of the most powerful clans along the western coast of Scotland.

The name Mingary, or Mingarry, may be the anglicised version of Mioghairidh, but the exact meaning of the word is cause for dispute. A possible translation is that it is derived from two Norse words, mikil, meaning great, and gardhr, a garth or house, so ‘great house’ – though the name has been translated by some to mean ‘great land between machair and moor’.

That its name has a Norse derivation suggests that the site was occupied in the time of the Vikings, if not before, and evolved into a mediaeval castle site, for it is not an ideal defensive position. It stands in a wide bay, between the headlands of Rubha Aird an Iasgaich (Point of the Fishing Height), in the lee of which is the Calmac pier, and, just out of view below the above picture, Rubh’ a’ Mhile (Point of the Mile).

Mingary from Ben Hiant

The castle itself is sited on a promontory formed of an igneous sill (see picture right – click to expand), with steep cliffs to south, west and east. A narrow neck of land connects it to the land to the north, which rises slowly, so the site is overlooked by hills. There is a better site: Rubha Aird an Iasgaich would have been far better, with the narrow isthmus connecting it to the land, or Glas Eilean, the next low headland in the picture, which is cut off at low tide and is very similar to the small island upon which Castle Tioram, north of Acharacle, was built.

To start to appreciate the importance of Mingary Castle, we have to understand the role of castles in mediaeval and pre-mediaeval times. Their job was to dominate an area militarily, and the most important castles therefore dominated major route ways.

West Coast Shipping Lanes

When Mingary was in its heyday, most movement was by sea. Travel on land was dangerous, uncomfortable, unreliable, and slow. Further, the people of the west coast had the Norse amongst their ancestors, and therefore, the sea in their blood. So most goods and people travelled by ship.

The ships of the time were galleys – pictures of them are carved on local headstones – but, although descended from Viking longship designs, they were cargo ships, incapable of riding out storms at sea; so they hugged the coast and followed the safest routes. Mariners moving along Scotland’s great western routeway (left) would avoid going round the western side of Mull, preferring the far calmer Sound of Mull – and Mingary sat in a controlling position at the northern end of the Sound.

To give a modern analogy, Mingary was like taking one of the Royal Navy’s new Type 45 destroyers and sitting it next to the M8 motorway; and Mingary’s version of highway patrol cars would have been small, fast ships that were pulled up on the beaches on either side of the castle, ready for immediate launch if a passing vessel required intercepting. Mingary therefore dominated the sea out as far as the islands of Tiree, Coll and Eigg.

Mingary Castle – Visible for Miles

As well as being a fighting machine, Mingary was a statement of power. Today, the stone of the curtain walls blend in to the landscape, but we know from recent archaeological work that the outsides of the walls were harled, and that their colour was a slightly pink shade of white. Like a lighthouse, the castle would have been visible from miles away, and its statement would have been that no-one passes the Sound of Mull without Mingary’s permission.

In our modern system of routes, Mingary is way off the beaten track, stuck out at the end of a long peninsula, far from the modern nodes of settlement and transport. Some of the castle’s importance therefore lies in its very neglect, with the result that much of its original structure is still there and visible. That it became so remote had another benefit: it wasn’t changed, so it remains a iconic example of Gaelic architecture uninfluenced by Norman, English or other outside ideas.

Whilst some ascribe the original construction of the castle to the MacDougalls, there is some debate here and it seems equally possible that it was a MacDonald castle from its inception. We hope to expose the various strands of evidence and supposition on this in more detail over forthcoming months … however it is clear that Mingary did become one of a chain of castles in the Lordship of the Isles, part of the great MacDonald fiefdom, and the seat of one of Clan MacDonald’s most important and powerful septs, Clan MacIain. The Lordship was almost a kingdom in its own right, for it often operated outside the jurisdiction of the Scottish king.

Aerial View from NW

This photo shows Mingary from the North West. The castle’s curtain walls, up to 14m high, form a hexagon. The longest and thickest wall is to the north, facing onto a neck of land which is cut by a defensive ditch 7.5m wide and 3m deep. There is a sea gate in the south wall, and a rock-cut stairway leads from the beach at the west to a land gate in the NW wall. The walls enclose a courtyard roughly 20m N-S and 18m E-W, within which rise three ranges of buildings. Sadly, the state of decay of this historic castle is such that its interior is inaccessible.

Remote, little known, it would have been so easy to allow Mingary to collapse into a picturesque ruin. That work has now started to rescue it is thanks to the efforts of the man who owns the Ardnamurchan Estate and Mingary itself, Donald Houston, who has set up the Mingary Castle Preservation & Restoration Trust.

Internal Decay

The Trust is now in the process of restoring the castle to its former grandeur, this site will allow you to follow the process of exploration, analysis and careful renovation as it happens, and to investigate the long and intricate history of this Scottish treasure. You also have the opportunity to be part of its future; this is a challenging and costly venture and any support that you can provide will help to secure Mingary Castle for future generations.

The Trust faces a huge task, not least in researching and recording before the work of stabilising and preservation can begin. An appeal for funds will be launched shortly, and it is hoped that people from all over the world will join together in helping to preserve this wonderful piece of Scottish history.

Many thanks to Addyman Archaeology for background information & advice.

Clan MacIain of Ardnamurchan Website

Our sister site casts a long overdue spotlight on the MacIain clan, which dominated the peninsula for over 300 years, shaping many key aspects of what it is today, before being defeated and brutally dispersed. It contains a rich selection of content on Ardnamurchan as it is and as it was and is a ‘must read’ for visitors to the peninsula, or those wishing to know more about their Scottish heritage.

Go on – be a part of it ..

Latest Tweets

Just as we thought winter might finally be behind us, everything changed again, with a north wind bringing snow for the hills and a cold, sleety rain down to sea level. To add to the builder's problems, the single-track B8007, the only road in and out of the community, is closed for several hours each […]

After last Thursday's storm, the weather cleared and we've had a glorious west Highland spring week, with temperatures soaring to 15C, light winds, and the northern lights playing in the clear night skies. This picture was taken on Sunday from the summit of Beinn na h-Urchrach to the northeast of the castle.The builders have long ago […]

Many thanks to Iain Thornber who took these aerial pictures of the castle on Sunday while passing in a helicopter. They give a good idea of the huge progress that has been made on the exterior work.Iain was fortunate that day with the weather. When I walked down to the castle today for my weekly […]

The scaffolding around the curtain walls wasn't due to come down for a couple of weeks, but when I visited the castle on Thursday John Forsyth has begun the long process, though it'll still be several weeks before he returns to drop the rest of it. However, all the scaffolding in the courtyard........has gone, and […]

This picture of one of the castle's lancet windows, taken in September 2013, gives some idea of their condition before renovation work started. Today, for these beautiful little windows, the last stage of the process began, with the arrival on site of a small team from Design Glass of Brighouse in Yorkshire.They had already visited […]

For both those working on Mingary Castle (arrowed) and the salvage teams working to salvage the Lysblink Seaways, the cargo ship (at left in picture) which ran aground at Kilchoan over a week ago, this has been a week of pelting rain, hail, snow, thunder and lightning, and frequent gales. After many difficulties, the ship […]

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, builder Mark Rutherford Thompson was almost thrown out of his bed by a crash which he immediately thought was the scaffolding collapsing around the castle - or an earthquake. It was neither, but sound of the impact made by a 7,500 tonne freighter travelling at 12 knots as […]

The weather has been uniformly grey for the last week, but at least it hasn't rained too much and the temperatures have held up, so the builders have been able to crack on with the outside jobs; and this morning the sun came out, which cheered everyone up.Mark Rutherford Thompson was in the office as […]

As forecast, the weather has been even colder this week than last. We've had hail and snow brought down on a bitter northerly airstream, and a nightly ground frost, with the temperatures only beginning to rise on Thursday. Picture shows Mingary Castle from the hill to its northeast, with the Kilchoan-Tobermory ferry at Mingary Pier.Not […]

I made the mistake early on of assuring builders Mark Rutherford Thompson and John-Paul Ashley that it didn't snow here much. Probably as a result, we've had more snow that usual, with further flurries coming across Ardnamurchan over the last two days, brought across from Greenland on a chill northwesterly wind.This was the view yesterday […]

This was the view this morning looking across the bay from Mingary Pier towards the castle, with Beinn na h-Urchrach, in a moment's unexpected sunshine, rising behind it. The snow which blanketed most of the area by late yesterday afternoon, bringing some difficult driving conditions, has melted at lower levels, but an icy wind continues […]

Snow isn't common on West Ardnamurchan - the peninsula is too much influenced by the warm waters of the North Atlantic Drift - so when it does come, particularly with some accompanying sunshine, the scenery can be spectacular.This is Mingary Castle from the east, with the Isle of Mull half covered in cloud in the […]

By nine yesterday morning the weather had let up after a spell of some of the worst conditions we've seen on Ardnamurchan in some years. In the last few days, as well as gales with winds gusting to over 100mph, hurricane force, we've had lightning, hail, sleet, snow, and one of the lowest barometric readings […]

It was good to be walking down at nine this morning for the first visit in three weeks, even though the weather wasn't too special, with some sharp hail showers blowing in on a chilly westerly wind. All seems to have gone well during the break, the only slight problem being that the biomass heating […]

If builder Mark Rutherford Thompson doesn't look too happy, he has good cause. Last week was a dreadful week, with severe gales, heavy rain, hail, sleet and snow and, to add to the fun, frequent lightning strikes which have brought eleven power outages, some of them as long as nine hours.Trying to keep a project […]

Here's wishing all the team at Mingary Castle a very happy, enjoyable and relaxing Christmas break. The site is closing down on the 18th, but some of them will be away earlier.Back row, left to right: Billy, Nick, Mark, Grimmy, Chris, Damien, 'H'.Front row, left to right: J-P, Martin, Callum, Richard.

The last time we saw Alasdair Smith (right) and Liam Martin of UKdima Engineering Ltd at the castle, they were drilling two large holes through the basement rock from the moat into the castle to carry the services, including the heating from the biofuel boiler. They've been down again over the last few weeks, this time drilling […]

I was late going down to the castle this week so missed what should have been a champagne event - the dropping of the scaffolding on the courtyard side of the north range. To make matters worse, after a week of fine weather it was overcast today, so this picture hardly does justice to the […]

Mingary Castle is silhouetted against the early morning sun in this shot looking across the Sound of Mull from the main road through Kilchoan village. This was the start of what promises to be another glorious day, in a November which, since the end of its first week when it stopped raining, has given us […]

Many thanks to Mark Rutherford Thompson of builders Ashley Thompson for this picture taken at Mingary late yesterday afternoon as the sun was setting across the Sound of Mull at the end of another fine day.After some days of heavy rain, November has settled down to warm days and nights and has remained dry.